The Eighth Dwarf
by Entity Sylvir
Summary: Snow White, the beautiful girl persecuted by her jealous stepmother and the handsome prince whose heart she captured. That's how the story goes, but this is the truth.


_Once upon a time a princess was born named Snow White. When the Queen died, the King remarried to a beautiful but wicked woman who hated her stepdaughter and so gave orders that she was to be treated as a servant. Snow White grew very beautiful and one day a Prince riding by saw her and instantly fell in love with her._

That's how it goes. The beautiful girl persecuted by her jealous stepmother, the handsome prince whose heart she captured, that's the story.

If only they knew the truth.

But I'm getting a little too far ahead, perhaps I should tell you about myself. My name is Brainy, I think my name is explanation enough for who I am. I slept in the bed that once occupied the empty space on the left of the bedroom in the dwarfs' house.

It all started the day we found that girl, stretched out across three beds, full from our food, with her shoes and cloak strewn across the room. She was a pretty thing, that's for sure, and she offered to help us and begged us to let her stay. Well, why not? We agreed.

She told us all about her evil stepmother and her magic mirror, and my fellow dwarfs swallowed it all. I was the only one smart enough to notice the holes in her story. Even Doc brushed me off as insensitive when I pointed out that her father wouldn't have allowed his new wife to treat his daughter like a servant, and that a girl that looked like she did couldn't have grown to her age with no friends or suitors that would be more likely to help her than a house full of strange dwarfs.

That is not to say that she was completely evil. Her stepmother's jealousy and dislike of her was real, and she knew that her father's health was dwindling and that his wife, not her, was next in line for the throne. She also knew that if her stepmother became queen she would most likely not be named heir, and can you really blame an ambitious young girl trying to add to her royal fiancé's kingdom?

Yes, if she uses us.

She made up stories about her stepmother in disguise trying to kill her, trying to convince us to hunt her stepmother down, to do her dirty work for her. Only I objected, I who saw through her lies, who secretly watched her laying out her plans at night, who realised that her stepmother, though vain and resentful, would never actually hurt her. I objected to killing an innocent woman, and my fellows shunned me for it. They threw me out of the house, saying that I was selfish and cowardly. And I know that _she_ had something to do with it, because honestly, was it that horrible that they thought me worse than Grumpy?

Well with her help, they did.

I stayed in the woods, sleeping in the safe areas and eating the edible plants. I still went to work everyday, but now my colleagues avoided my gaze, never talking to me. It was only from a reluctant Happy a few weeks later that I discovered what had happened.

It's ironic isn't it? The lying girl making up stories about her stepmother trying to kill her to convince some naïve dwarfs to take revenge, only to frighten her stepmother with the repeated attacks and provoke her into self defence by actually killing her murderous daughter.

I couldn't decide whether to laugh or to cry.

In the end I did neither, instead I found my self audience to something I'd never thought I'd encounter and frankly didn't quite know how to deal with: a heartbroken prince.

I must admit that it touched me, that despite everything Snow White had done it seemed that she and her fiancé truly loved each other. Kindred spirits, I guess, both greedy, both cunning, but also both passionate. I gave in to his pleas.

It took time and effort to find the antidote to that pesky fruit, that stepmother certainly had no lack of knowledge in poisonous plants. But with the aid of the princess's dedicated dwarfs (after seeing them so eager to help I simply didn't have to heart to continue to assert the truth) I managed it. And let it be known that it was I who brought Snow White back to health, and into the arms of her lover.

And so began the legend, a love story that would live on for centuries. Even today, children all over the world still are told the tale of the beautiful princess killed by jealously and the handsome prince who revived her with love.

I just wish that at least one person would tell of poor old Brainy.


End file.
